LA Syndrome
by VoodooBanshee
Summary: Kagome is a DJ, Inuyasha is the worlds best motorcycle designer in the world, Sango is a bouncer, Miroku is a Graphics Artist and Los Angeles is an Island?. What happens when you bring all that together under one story? You're about to find out...


**L.A. Syndrome**

Chapter 1: City of Dreams

Leaning against the window sill, she watched half heartedly as the rain began to pour. She was gonna miss New York... miss her friends, her home, her life. Yeah... she would miss some of that. But damn it! She was not about to stay in this god forsaken place any longer. She couldn't stand one more minute of it. Almost everything about the city, her apartment, and this life, reminded her about the pain she felt inside... that wound still felt a little too raw.

It had been 6 months since the break up, and she still cried herself to sleep sometimes. How could someone hurt her so much? How could someone cause so much pain in one night? _'How?'_

But she was done with it. Done with feeling weak... done with feeling betrayed, done with all of it.

Well, saying you were done with it was one thing... severing ties completely was something else entirely. True, they had broken up 6 months before, but they still saw each other every day. Kinda hard to avoid each other when they worked together.

But, those days of having to put up with his presence, and attempts to win her back were over.

She was leaving.

In less than 24 hours she would start a new life, and her past would be just that. Her past.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. Images of everything that had happened in her life up to this point ran through her head, making her dizzy for a moment.

She let out a small sigh and grabbed her bags. When she got to the door, she took one last look back. One last look at what was left of her old life. She stood there, with a hand on the door knob for what seemed like an eternity until finally she turned around and stepped out into the world, closing the door behind her.

She left her old life behind her... and didn't even cry.

InuYasha sat on the soft leather couch as usual, flipping through the channels trying to find something decent to watch. He had tried working on that _damned_ design for the _damned_ new bike all _damned_ morning, but he just couldn't get right. Or just _right_ for his standards anyway…

_'Damn Sesshomaru and his damned fuckin' deadlines!'_ He thought with annoyance.

Sesshomaru was InuYasha's older brother, as well as Owner, President and C.E.O of Inu-no-Taishou Motor Holding (or Taishou as they were best known), the biggest motorcycle manufacturer in Asia and North America. Its biggest competitor was Ducati in Europe. But the way business was booming, Ducati wouldn't be much of a competitor in the near future.

InuYasha owned half of Taishou, and was also the Vice President, but he let his brother take care of all that 'corporate crap' as he liked to call it. He was no good with corporate politics- he was much better with his hands than all that talking crap his brother did all the time.

Everyone agreed that the Taishou brothers made a great team in the business world. InuYasha was the master designer and visionary, while Sesshomaru made InuYasha's conceptualization come to life and almost ruthlessly handled all aspects of the company. It was a business match made in heaven... or hell, depending on the person's or demon's point of view. Their personal relationship however, was far from brotherly, well, to the casual observer of course. Probably because they hated each other's guts... or so they liked to make themselves believe. Well, hate was such a strong word. Maybe they didn't really, _really_ hate each other but it in their eyes, it was close to it. In all actually, they just really liked to annoy the heck out of one another. They called it hate. Everyone else, called it 'brotherly love'.

When InuYasha was thirteen, their parents had died in a horrible accident, leaving the older teen, barely eighteen at the time, to take care of his younger brother and their father's empire at the same time. It was this tragedy that brought the bothers closer together, and further apart at the same time. Truth was that the sibling rivalry was just part of the infamous family dynamics. If ever InuYasha found himself in a jam, Sesshomaru would be there in a heartbeat to deal with whatever or whomever would even dare try and cause trouble for his 'little brother'. In turn, InuYasha, would viciously defend his 'older brother' as well, from anything and anyone. Everyone who was anyone knew it, and they were already used to the bothers antics.

Point in fact. Sesshomaru _'abhorred'_ his brother to such an extent that he one day made InuYasha Co-Owner and Vice President of the company without so much as an explanation- and no one ever dared to bring up the fact that he had done it on InuYasha's eighteenth birthday. And, likewise, InuYasha _'hated'_ his brother so much, that for the demon's twenty-fifth birthday, he built him the Tenseiga, a one of a kind motorcycle which became known as one of the world's fastest, most powerful and beautifully designed motorcycles in the world. It was rivaled only by InuYasha's own bike, the Tetsusaiga. InuYasha designed both motorcycles at the same time based on a prototype his father had built, So'unga.

Yep... they hated each other with a fiery passion.

With a scowl on his face, InuYasha sunk deeper into the couch. If he kept at it, he would soon fall asleep and never finish the design on time. Deadline was Friday morning, 10:00 a.m. sharp.

Suddenly something soft and plushy grazed one of his ears. He jumped from his seat, startled, and stared at the girl who stood in the middle of the room sporting a very scary and very angry face.

"INUYASHA TAISHOU!!!" She yelled making his ears ring with the high pitch sound of her voice.

"What the fuck is your problem Sango!" He spat back in an aggravated tone for being yelled at like a child, he knew the reason she was mad, and he mentally slapped himself for making her this angry. A mad Sango was a scary Sango, and he was really not in the mood to deal with that.

Where was Miroku when you needed him?

"Why does the living room look like a tornado hit it?" She asked in a huff crossing her arms out in front of her.

In reality, this was his house, all six bedrooms and seven and a half baths with outdoor pool and spa and all.

"You know I spent all morning cleaning for a reason, and **now** look at it!" InuYasha rolled his eyes and plopped back down on the couch.

"Sorry! Jeez! Don't bite my head off woman!" He said with a huff.

Sango just rolled her eyes and began picking up the mess that InuYasha had made. He tried not to look at her but couldn't help seeing her from the corner of his eye. He did feel guilty about the whole thing. He had been so preoccupied with that damned design that he had forgotten that Sango was having another potential `roomie' coming in later on that day to show them the place.

She had some sort of epiphany the last time they had a party, which if he remembered correctly had been about two week ago, and refused to share the same space by herself with the current male populous of the household- she needed another girl around to even things out.

"I told you I was going to have a potential roommate come and check the place out, Yash. That's why I spent half the morning cleaning!"

He could have said something fucked up like, _`It's my damned house and I'll make all the damned fucking mess I want.'_ But even he wasn't that much of an asshole. _`Unlike Sesshomaru..._' Finally, after several minutes of just sitting there staring at absolutely nothing interesting on the telly, InuYasha decided to get up and help Sango clean his own mess.

"Really, I'm sorry Sango. I forgot you said that." She rolled her eyes again at him and picked up two big black trash bags.

"Whatever Yash. Just, don't make a mess again. She'll be here in like an hour."

As she walked away from him towards the garage with the garbage bags in hand, she missed the scowling face that stared back at her with an obscene amount of annoyance. But what she didn't miss was the distinctive growl and "Keh!" that followed soon after.

"I wonder if this is the right place," Kagome asked herself while looking at the yellow post it again for the umpteenth time.

Arching an eyebrow once more, she checked the details again. _'This can't be... the right place... can it?'_

The place looked huge! She had never seen a house quite like this before, well, not so up close n'all anyway. In Dream Home Magazine, maybe. Sure, New York had tons and tons of condos and high rise apartments, but none with the absolutely gorgeous ocean view right before her. And if there had been something as gorgeous as this place, maybe she just had forgotten. The New York rents for those places, the condos and smaller apartments, were like small fortunes- heh, more like one mega rent payment if you asked her. The kind of rent this place was asking for was way too low... Ha! More like dirt cheap. Even for the smaller one bedroom condos and singles she had seen outside the L.A. Island, back on land in California couldn't compete with this place. And the prices simply escalated as you got in to Los Angeles.

She had checked every newspaper possible and found that there were lots of vacancies in California with cheaper rents. But if you wanted to live in the island of L.A. you had to dish out an arm and a leg and then sell your soul to afford even the smallest of apartments.

California would have been the more logical choice for her, considering her current circumstances. And if it hadn't been for her job situation, she would have stayed in Cali. But as luck would have it, she had gotten a call back from one of the night clubs she had applied to on a whim in L.A.- Club Chaos or just Chaos as the locals called it. It was one of the newer clubs in the city and it was fast becoming one of the most popular ones on the whole island.

They were in need of a DJ, and badly, but not just any DJ would do for them... they needed someone new, a new face, someone that would set them apart from other clubs, someone different than your average Joe-DJ, someone young, attractive and with experience. Someone that would bring the crowds flocking to their door step every weekend.

For Chaos, she was the perfect choice.

Back in New York she had made a name for herself... Miko had been her alias, and the name was well known across the city's nightlife. The club manager in L.A had no problem hiring her on the spot after she gave him some background and a few references.

She had been so excited until she realized that she still needed a place to stay, and in order to work at Chaos, she would need something that was close by and not just hours away.

And she needed it fast. Money didn't grow on trees and she was starting to run low.

She had been renting a room in one of the cheaper motels in the island, but even those were rather pricey. But she was not about to let something like a smallish, or not so smallish, bump in the road keep her from working on one of the coolest nightclubs in L.A.

After DJ'ing for about a week she befriended one of the bouncers at the club. Oddly enough for Kagome, the bouncer had been a girl, a rather interesting girl named Sango. She seemed like a cool girl to Kagome. Pretty too. She was taller than she was, and had straight dark brown hair that came down below her shoulders, and brown eyes.

At first glance, she didn't believe she was a bouncer at all, but that was before watching her kick a drunken guy out of the club all by herself. Sango was really strong and was more than capable of taking care of herself.

One night after work, she had mentioned her little dilemma to bouncer and Sango had told her enthusiastically that she had been looking for roommates just that same week to share her beach strand home with. She had explained that she had two other roommates, and that as much as she liked living with the opposite sex, she needed someone with a little less testosterone and a little more estrogen in her life.

She quickly wrote down the address on a yellow post it and told Kagome she would meet her at her place the following day...

Now that Kagome was here, she simply stood at the front of the door, almost drooling.

The 'beach home' as Sango had called it, was really not just your average beach home at all. It was more like a huge modern-styled mansion right on the sandy beach. She could tell it had a pool and what looked like a four of five car garage, maybe even more.

Gulping a little, she walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. Within minutes the door opened up and a handsome looking guy with short black hair walked out to greet her.

He grinned at her showing off his pearly whites and took her hand onto his, a creepy and perverted look twinkling across his face, "Would you do me the honor of bearing my children?"

Kagome's eye twitched and then she turned ten shades of red right then and there.

Before she could respond to such a request, there was a loud `SMACK!' And the guy who had so eagerly opened the door collapsed to the floor.

"That's Miroku," Sango said stepping from behind the door, "Don't mind him."

Miroku rubbed the back of his head and smiled at Kagome again. "Nice to meet you!" He said getting up and walking back inside house, disappearing for a moment before popping his head back from a room that seemed like the kitchen.

Sending a menacing glance towards Miroku, Sango proceeded to show Kagome around.

Kagome had been right, the place _was_ like a mansion. It had a huge family room with a big fireplace, a huge flat screen TV, a den with a full on bar, an open dining room with marble flooring and a kitchen to die for, complete with a granite counter tops and breakfast bar with an island stove.

Then came the bedrooms.

"This right here is my room. That one is Miroku's. The one down the hall, is InuYasha's. This room here... between Miroku's room and InuYasha's is the study." The girl said pointing to each and every room and allowing Kagome a moment to take a quick peek, with the exception of InuYasha's room of course. "And this one is the one we're renting out. There's one more room downstairs, InuYasha converted that into a gym."

The 'rooms' were much bigger than her old living room _and_ kitchen put together, the bathrooms were really big too. They all had nice Jacuzzi style tubs with jets all around. The bathrooms alone had her completely excited. How long had it been since he had taken a long warm and relaxing bath?

Way too long in her book.

Kagome was more than just excited... she was ecstatic. How could she say no to this kind of offer? They all seemed like nice people. But there was still one roommate left.

"Who is InuYasha?" She asked.

"Oh, he's the guy that owns this place. He's locked up in his room right now. Probably sleeping or working or... who knows!"

Kagome looked back at the closed door down the hall and shrugged, following Sango back down the stairs and on towards the living room.

"So? What do you think?"

Kagome smiled, "I think I'm gonna like living here."

Sango's eyes lit up. _'Finally! No more mindless conversations with men! No more two against one fights!'_ She thought.

"Really?"

"Really, really." Kagome said giggling.

Kagome had arrived the following day at around 5:00 p.m. Sango had given her keys to the house and told her she could move in whenever she wanted. Not wanting to spend another day in a motel, Kagome had decided to move in the very next day.

She would've done it that same night when Sango gave her the keys, but she thought it would have been way too rude and plus, way too tiring to pack and get moved in all in just a few hours.

So here she was now, in her new place. She only had three and a half hours to put her stuff in order and get ready for work.

After pushing the last of her luggage in the house she began to look around, and found a note on the kitchen counter.

_Kagome,_

_Welcome girl! Please, make yourself at home. Sorry I'm not there, but I have to run some errands. See you at the club later on. Oh! And if you want we can go shopping tomorrow! If you have any questions, call me. You got my number._

_-Sango_

She smiled placing the note in her pocket. As she began to haul her luggage towards the stairs when she heard a door somewhere slam.

"Eeek!"

With a quick jump she turned around. Standing in front of her was a guy she had never met. _'I wonder if this is that guy, InuYasha.'_ She thought.

He had long silver hair that looked so soft and silky she almost felt envious, it was the longest she had ever seen on any guy. The next thing she noticed was his penetrating gaze and piercing golden eyes. He wore baggy blue jeans and a tight black muscle shirt which showed off all of his muscles quite nicely, he also wore a black bandanna which accentuated his silver mane. And he was tall too, probably 6'4" or something.

He was hot... hotter than hot. Just right down sexy.

_'Dog demon?_ She immediately thought after ogling him.

He didn't notice her right away, but when he did. It wasn't the "Hi," she was expecting to hear. He looked at her funny for a few seconds as if in a daze, maybe even a little confused and then... "Who the hell are you?" He asked annoyed and almost growling, the signature scowl plastered on his face.

_'What the- did he just growl at me?'_ All illusions of the guy had completely shattered the minute he opened his mouth. _'Rude much?'_ She thought to herself.

"Umm... I'm the new roommate. Kagome..." She said politely and extending her hand to shake his. He ignored it and walked right past her, straight to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of water from the fridge while mumbling under his breath about stupid wenches.

"Whatever wench. Mind getting your fucking shit out of the hall way? That ain't a storage place y'know?" He really hadn't meant to be so rude to the girl on her first day, but she had caught him at a bad time. His meetings with his brother were always stressful and always left him feeling angry and annoyed. Not to mention that he had almost done a face-plant back in the hallway when he tripped over her stuff.

Kagome blinked several times before his words sunk in. No one had ever been that rude to her. Well, ever.

"Well excuse me for leaving '_my shit'_ out in the hallway, Dog Boy. I just got here okay? And, my name is not _wench_, its Kagome. **Ka-go-me**! Got that?!" She yelled and then rolled her eyes at him.

Without much thought, she turned around and picked up her luggage and tried to haul it up the stairs.

The last comment however had set InuYasha off, "Excuse me!? What the fuck did you just call me!?"

"A Dog Boy… or would Mr. All-Prissy-High-and-Mighty work better for you?" She said nonchalantly.

"Look bitch! Don't you ever call me a fuckin' Dog Boy, or whatever the fuck. I ain't some gay shit. You got that, wench? And I'll call ya whatever fuckin' name I wanna call ya. This is my fuckin' house. _Got it?!_" He was beyond pissed. The girl had just insulted him and now she was just ignoring him like nothing happened. This bitch knew how to push all the right buttons.

"Bitch? You're calling me a bitch? You know what? I don't know what stick you got up your ass, but I suggest you take it out. Don't wanna be called a Dog Boy? Then stop acting like an immature puppy, stupid. And I never said you were gay! Sheesh! And I'm not a bitch, or a wench, you _got it!?!_" With that, Kagome lifted up her heavy suit case and quickly went up the stairs leaving a fuming InuYasha down in the kitchen.

"Why you fuckin', stupid ugly wench!" InuYasha yelled after her.

"Stupid ass Dog Boy!" She yelled back from the stairs.

"Bitch!"

"Jerk!" 

He couldn't believe the nerve of that girl. Sure, he and Sango fought here and there, but Sango never dared call him names or get in shouting matches with him. The girl was something else really.

_'She does smell really good when she's angry though.' _He through absent mindedly, but then frowned. _'The fuck am I thinking. She doesn't smell good at all... in fact she stinks! Yeah, fuckin' stinkin' wench._'

But he had found her sent rather soothing and it had turned him on before she opened her fucking mouth to talk back to him. In fact, he realized, he had smelled her the moment she came in the house, he just had been so wrapped up in his phone conference to pay much attention to the new, enticing scent. But he would never allow himself to admit that, not out loud anyway. Maybe it wasn't just the fact that he was upset at his brother to begin with that had made him act like such an ass towards her. Maybe it had a lot to do with the fact that she looked like a certain someone he wanted to desperately forget. _'She does look like that fuckin' whore though. Well, not too much- her face is similar but... Fuck! Just my fucking luck._' Muttering a string of curses to himself he walked towards the living room and made himself comfortable on the couch.

He was not gonna think about this. He refused to let his mind wander down that road again. He had spent six month in hell trying to forget _'the whore'_ as he now liked to call her and he had decided long ago that no matter how much he had cared, some things were better left forgotten. But the wench, this girl, Kagome, had brought back some pretty unpleasant memories and it was for that reason, he belatedly realized, he had unleashed his legendary temper on her. Little did he know that she would be able to match it with a temper of her own.

He needed to get out of here, have a smoke, have a drink and forget about this fucking day. The idea didn't sound half bad. Pulling out his cell phone he dialed Miroku's number.

"Hello." Said the voice on the other end.

"Hey Miroku, it's Yash. Where the fuck are you?"

"I'm at Amoeba's getting a few CD's. S'up man?"

InuYasha idly flipped through channels as he talked on the phone. "Nothing. Abso-fuken-lutely noting. I need to get the fuck out of this place."

"Guess your meeting with Sesshomaru went as expected?" Miroku asked with a bit of humor in his voice, but didn't get a response from the half-demon, only a pretty angry growl.

"Alright, alright. Didn't mean anything by it. I was just asking if your meeting with your brother had gone like-"

Exasperated, the demon growled again, "Miroku..."

"Okay, I'm dropping the subject. How about we go for drinks." Miroku said with a grin.

"Just what I was thinking. We can check out Chaos... I've never been."

You didn't have to tell Miroku twice. He had been itching to go. Not just for the club's notorious reputation, but because a certain roommate with dangerous curves worked there. "Sounds good. Sango just started working there not that long ago. Maybe we won't have to wait in line, I know she's working there tonight. She can get us in."

InuYasha smirked. "Feh."

Besides her rude encounter with InuYasha, the rest of Kagome's evening had gone well. She was able to get most of her stuff organized in her room and she even got to try her new Jacuzzi styled tub. Yep. Life was good.

And now she was getting ready for work.

She wore a black pleated mini-skirt with pink pin stripes, extra mini and black boy-short undies which accentuated her long, creamy legs. Then she put on a dark brown thin layered, almost see-thru Cami, and on top of that she slipped on a pink tank top. She pulled a black short sleeved hoodie from the closet just in case it got cold at night. To finish the look, she put on her favorite knee high boots.

Pulling her long, raven colored hair in a messy and sexy looking ponytail she dashed out of the house and headed to Chaos.

By 9:30 p.m. she was already there. The lines to get into the club were long, being that it was a Friday night and everyone was out and about.

Casually she walked to the front of the line, and Ian, one of the many bouncers on duty, instantly gave her a smile when he recognizing her. Just at that same moment, InuYasha and Miroku appeared and began to make their way towards the front of the line as well.

As they got closer to the front of the line, InuYasha sniffed the air and realized that Kagome was there too.

_'Great. Just fuckin' great.'_

He didn't recognize her right away at first, but when she briefly turned to look towards the line, he knew it was her.

She looked damned sexy in that outfit, he had to admit. She even managed to get his demon all riled up about it... which was no easy feat. When he had seen her earlier, she had been wearing a baggy pair of sweatpants and an over sized t-shirt. So her true figure had been lost under all those clothes. He also noticed that she really didn't look too much like his ex like he had originally thought. Now that he had gotten over the initial shock and was able to really look at her for the first time, he was able to see all the various differences, starting with her eyes... they were a strange shade of blue, almost crystalline, not dark pools they had been when they had argued.

_'Pretty.' _

After a small chit chat, Ian let her in. She hadn't taken five steps before she heard the distinct voice of InuYasha in the background.

"Fuck you! I told you we have a friend who works here. She said we'd be cool!" He snarled.

"Sorry man, but you'll still have to wait at the back of the line." Said Ian blocking his path.

"But you let her in," InuYasha spat pointing at Kagome. "What the fuck was that all about, huh?! This is fuckin' bullshit. I ain't waiting no two fuckin' hours just to get in to some fuckin' club."

For some reason, Kagome felt bad. Not that she liked InuYasha or anything, NO WAY! But she still felt bad.

Shaking her head, as if to say 'Why am I even doing this?' or 'I know I'm gonna regret it later.' She walked back towards Ian, a sugary sweet smile painted on her face.

"Hey," she said tapping his shoulder to get his attention. Ian looked down at her, eyebrow raised questioningly. InuYasha turned back around, his ears perking at the sound of her voice. Miroku, who had been quiet the whole time, gave her the biggest smile.

"They're cool. Just let them in, yeah?"

Ian looked at her funny for a few seconds, but nodded and unhooked the velvet rope in front of him. Kagome smiled at him sweetly again and lightly touched his arm, mouthing a 'Thank you.' She gave InuYasha a quick smile and a wink, then turned back around and made her way into the club, getting lost within the crowd.

InuYasha stood there, perplexed. He didn't quite understand what had just happened. It was not the fact that the girl had serious connections that troubled him. But the fact that he had majorly chewed out said girl earlier and she had still been nice enough to get him and Miroku into the club. He had expected her to laugh in his face and say something stupid like, 'Serves you right!' or something along those lines.

But instead she helped him get in.

_'Hn...'_

"Well, are you guys comin' in? Or you're just gonna stand there." Ian's voice snapped InuYasha out of his thoughts.

Growling at the bouncer, he and Miroku walked into Chaos, the best god damned club in Island of Angels.


End file.
